Why drinking alcohol leads to more drinking: the brain changes discovered by US researchers
- Changes in the brain that occur after drinking can make people want to drink more when they’re in certain places or with certain people, study reveals
- Findings could lead to drugs being made to treat addiction that target specific areas of the brain that alcohol affects
Running into a former drinking buddy or passing a once-favourite bar can cause recovering alcoholics to relapse.
But the biology behind why those setbacks happen was a mystery to scientists until recently, when researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in the US found that alcohol directly affects the brain’s learning and memory system through a test on mice.
Drinking actually helps people’s brains “learn” alcohol – the bar they’re drinking in, the street they’re on and the people they’re with – says Shelley Berger, a cell and developmental biology professor who is the study’s senior author. This learning can make people want to drink more when they’re in certain environments or with groups of people.
And unravelling how the learning happens opens the possibility someday of treatments to block the action.
